Bad Timing

In a nutshell: Theresa Russell takes an overdose. She’s been shagging Art Garfunkel behind Denholm Elliot’s back. Elliot finds out, and doesn’t much care. Art finds out about Elliot and does. Cue shouting and thrown bottles aplenty. Russell takes an overdose, Art turns up and phones an ambulance, but not before shagging her as she lies about, half-dead. Or does he? Or did she? Or will they? Harvey Keitel to the rescue… Nic Roeg’s usual temporal trickery slices and dices this ripe bit of noir like so much boiled Haslet for the butcher’s window, and the necro undertones so curdled the Rank top brass’s Horlicks they denounced the thing as the product of sick minds and ensured this last hurrah for the company came without the customary gong-bashing muscleman up the front end.

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David Pascoe

October 30, 2009 at 6:07 pm

Unsurprisingly shown during Mark Cousins’s stewardship of Moviedrome, I recorded this on video but mistimed it and missed the last 5 or so minutes. Garfunkel was dancing around in his pants above Russell when the tape stopped. The only other thing I remember is an unsettling scene where Garfunkel goes to visit Russell after a row and she’s painted the walls of her apartment black and sits in a chair, wearing a black wig with make up daubed all over her face, laughing in hysterical silence.